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11:30 a.m. - 2011-09-11
Strength and Sorrow.

I did find out something cool from this whole mess with MIL. I found out I'm okay.

In former times I would have taken MIL's rejection as an indictment of me and my essential worthlessness. I would have torn myself to bits over why I'd been deemed valueless and unlovable again. It would have sparked a cycle of fruitless attempts to prove I'm worth something. Insane bouts of housecleaning. Forfeiting comfort. Extreme dieting. Or conversely I'd have spun out into really self-destructive behavior, trying to finish the job of reducing my worth to nothing. Drinking, blowing up friendships to validate what a piece of crap I was, hectoring myself with the most demeaning and self-loathing abuse I could think of.

None of those things happened. I did some comfort eating and chowed through a pile of cookies and candy, but otherwise I just cried until I hurt little less inside and then got on with my life. What MIL's done hurts me but it hasn't destroyed me. Just because she thinks I'm worthless doesn't mean I have to agree with her.

And I don't. This time I can take the blame and put it where it belongs- on MIL. I haven't lost myself in a welter of pain and self-recrimination, breaking my heart over what's wrong with me. Dying a little more every day over why I come in behind a scumbag like George. I don't come in behind George to anybody but MIL. Especially not to myself. I know I'm okay. I'm allowed to be here and don't have to be perfect to earn the privilege of taking up space. Those dark days, that bitter hopelessness, all that pain I took onto myself over other's behavior toward me and made it the standard by how I saw myself, all that self-inflicted misery is over.

I'm rather proud of myself for this. I hurt, yes, but over the loss of my relationship with and faith in MIL, not because I've let this betrayal rob me of my own self-worth.

Mick is so upset! My dear mannie keeps trying to find ways to make it better for me. To say something that will take my hurt away. Yesterday he tried to fix things by telling me how much MIL loved me otherwise. How glad she was of me, both for my own self and for how good life is for her son now. Surely that counted, right? No. Not this time it doesn't.

I explained to Mick this wasn't something like MIL saying I had a fat ass or was a terrible cook. Hell, I could have stood it even if she called me a bad mother. But this? No. She crossed a Rubicon and ain't never coming back. I reminded Mick of a conversation we'd had several times about fidelity. How Mick has sworn that should I ever cheat on him we're over. Done. Kaput. All the love and kindnesses and happiness that came before would be wiped out. If I cheated it meant I'd put my own selfish wants ahead of Mick and everything we had together and proved how little any of it meant to me. There'd be nothing left to say. It didn't matter how good things had been, by ignoring Mick and blowing apart his trust in me for something as stupid as another man's dick, well, there'd be no relationship left to salvage.

And that's the case here. MIL has committed the one unforgivable sin I have. There's no pain she could dish, no trust she could have betrayed more. A man put his hands and dick on me and I didn't want them there. End of story. There's no excuses. There's no shades of grey here. My body is my own and nobody is allowed to trespass on it. And some man did trespass and then claimed I was the one with the problem for objecting. And MIL agrees with him. Oh no, no, no. Doesn't work that way. As a woman, as a mother, as my friend, any of those should have been reason enough for MIL to be there for me. She wasn't. Instead she chose to insult me, abandon me, and rub my face in how little I matter to her. We're finished. There's nowhere to go from this. I'll do what I have to to maintain a semblance of family unity, but otherwise MIL can go piss up a rope. If she thinks I will ever trust her again she's crazy. MIL's shown her true colors and they clash with my heart.

I am sorry it went like this. I loved having a mother. Felt whole for the first time in my life. All the pieces of the family I'd never had were finally there for me. But when the shit went down MIL chose to break her piece off and there's nothing I can do about that. It was her choice to say it was okay for her slimy cousin to grab my breast, to grind his hard-on into my butt. Her choice to claim how I felt was moot. Her choice to say it doesn't count because it didn't really happen the way I said it did. Or if it had I must have liked it, why else hadn't I screamed and gone berserk when George pushed himself on me at Gram's funeral? MIL's put her own comforting spin on things at my expense and the truth doesn't matter. She's actually using my decency against me. My decision to stay quiet, to put the others' pain and potential hurt before my own so as not to make Gram's funeral any worse is seen by her as a fault on my part. I didn't do what I did out of respect and love and honor, nope, nobody would do that. I was to be blamed for not speaking up. What happened was MY fault, not George's. Of course since I'd flaunted myself in front of George by showing up with all my body parts and not leaving my breasts and ass safely at home like a good girl, well, I deserved what I got, didn't I?

I deserved George's lechery and MIL's betrayal about as much as the 1000's we mourn today deserved to be murdered.